The King of Queens: CBS Prepares to Say Goodbye

Published: April 9, 2007

The longest running sitcom currently on network TV, The King of Queens, returns tonight with the first of its final seven episodes. The series is finishing its ninth year on television and is scheduled to say goodbye on Monday May 14, 2007 with a double episode.

The King of Queens centers around Queens, N.Y. blue-collar couple Doug and Carrie Heffernan who share their humble home with Carrie’s eccentric father, Arthur. Doug’s only refuge from Arthur is the bits of time he can spend alone with Carrie or with his TV sports-watching buddies Deacon, Spence and Danny. Queens stars Kevin James as well as Leah Remini, Gary Valentine, Patton Oswalt, Victor Williams and Jerry Stiller.

The Kevin James sitcom has long been a staple of CBS’ primetime schedule. Some viewers were dismayed to find it strangely missing from the Fall 2006 schedule but CBS maintained that the sitcom would return by early 2007. Fans were pleasantly surprised when the series returned earlier than expected on December 6th and began its ninth season. That joy was quickly tempered when loyal viewers realized that it would be a short season.

Queens has been on the air since September 21, 1998. The show’s popularity has waned in recent years and, as often happens, the cost to produce the show has risen. Kevin James reportedly got into a salary dispute in 2005 and CBS agreed to pay him an estimated $500,000 per episode for the 2005-2006 season. The network agreed to a ninth season, albeit a shorter one made up of only 13 episodes (versus the regular 22). Fans that knew of the situation were hopeful that an agreement would be reached to produce a full season if the ratings were strong enough.

Though Queens started the season with almost 10 million viewers, it apparently wasn’t enough for CBS to want to change its plans. In late 2006, CBS decided to break up the abbreviated Queens season — running six new episodes in December/January and then airing the final seven starting tonight — replacing the seven episode run of freshman series Rules of Engagement. CBS Entertainment President Nina Tasslet said at the time, “These scheduling moves enable us to program more original episodes of comedy in targeted time periods for the remainder of the season. It also provides an opportunity to give The King of Queens a proper send-off in a high profile time period in the Monday night block it helped build.”

Cast and crew alike are staying hush-hush on the story details but we do know that the final episodes will tie up a lot of storylines, give us some resolutions, and reference a lot of past events from the series’ 200+ episode history. Though there are a lot of heartaches and surprises ahead (as you can tell from the network promos), the series will conclude with a happy ending.

The final episode was taped on March 15, 2007 with many friends and family members in attendance, including Ray Romano and his wife. By all reports, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. At the following night’s wrap party, Williams shared, “Last night I felt the strongest sense of pride I’ve ever felt in my life. Nine years on a sitcom is such a tremendous accomplishment in such a difficult business. Everyone on the show has much to be proud of.”

Remini commented on how difficult it is to say farewell, “It’s really hard. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, you know, to say goodbye to some people that I’ve been working with for 9 years. It’s very hard.” No doubt loyal viewers can sympathize. Stay tuned!

THE KING OF QUEENS, is a huge thing for me , because the show is not only funny and the stars are unreal, but I am also from QUEENS N.Y.C. so I can relate to alot of the things that go on in the show. I am gonna miss it like crazy, I feel terribly sad.

Just as all of you, I really like the King of Queens. There are very, very few shows on TV that posess the qualities that make me interested enough to devote myself to watching. Particularly, there are very few ACTIVE shows (no other network television other than King of Queens) on TV that I devote myself to watching-and since Seinfeld, King of Queens has been the only show that I call one of my favs that follows the general framework of the “traditional” sitcom genre.My favorite shows on TV these days tend to be the super artistic/intellectual, hour-long drama’s that HBO started with the Soprano’s; which incorporate movie-quality cinematography, highly intellectual and non-clich’ed plots and dialogue, and of course, stellar acting from all involved. It is these shows that have blurred the lines between cinema and TV, and they are what I consider to be the cutting edge. My current fav is The Shield-it combines all of these qualities, and then some…just amazing work and art. The Wire is a close second, and I am a Soprano’s fan, 6-feet under fan, and I also like AMC’s Hustle. However, the sitcom is not dead. Im a Seinfeld fantatic-of course, and it was only a little while ago that it was the best show on TV and was breaking all of the rules so to speak; and subsequently attracting huge audiences across all demographics. Since then, HBO’s Curb your Enthusiasm and the King of Queens are the only shorter, half-hour long shows that I have been drawn to. I should mention that I am a huge fan of animation satirical comedy such as the Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, and even King of the Hill and some of Comedy Centrals (actually Willaims Street’s)weird creations such as Robot Chicke, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021, Moral Oral, and 12 Oz. Mouse. I also am a Cowboy Bebop fanatic-but that is a whole nother bag all together. To get back to The King of Queens, at first appearances, it seems much more like the normal sitcom format than say Seinfeld for instance. But that is only true in plot. The plot and general theme/direction of the shows theme are definetely straight and traditional sitcom. But, everything else is a little different and even sometimes way different. As I said, the plot could be called just normal-not bad, but normal sitcom stuff. However, the writers dialogue is stellar. In particular, the show was casted perfectly-and the writers quickly began really writing for the particular actors skills soon after the pilot. Kevin James is simply and electric figure. A guy who is hard to get tired of. I’m not gonna crap on his friends show, but James succeeds exactly where Ray Romano fails in Everybody loves Raymond. Raymond is an ok show, certainly not bad like some shows, but it never breaks away from the sitcom mold the way King of Queens does. And when King of Queens happens to have a particularly normal “sitcomy” episode, it is James’ abilities along with the other actors (which I will mention shortly) that makes it possible to still do a great job of entertainting. Like I said, for some reason, you just dont get tired of him like at least I do with Romano. After about three episodes of Raymond, I have had completely enough of his 1 dimensional comedy act made into a show. I just feel like James is so diverse despite you usually knowing what he is going to say. His little mannerisms and added parts to lines, as well as his improvised made-up vocabulary resulting in unique catch phrases and new words. I like all of the actors in this show, except for Larry Romano-who was only in season 1; meaning that the production crew aptly recognized this problem. His replacemtn, James’ brother fits right in and is a nice addition. I have to say what puts the show over the top for me though, is first, that Lea Reamini is like no other TV wife ever before her. And the big thing that puts it over the top has to be the performance and plot/dialogue that is written in for and by Jerry Stiller. This guy is amazing. And what I like so much about his hilarious character: that is so deep and has so many little intricate quirks, he has such hilarious interactions with Doug, and he is such a consumate professional. The thing about Stiller though is that we all loved him in Seinfeld. But his character there, was just that one-sided loudmouthed guy who was really funny when he yelled and argued with people. It just goes to show how good he is that everyine loves him so much in that show and it only portrays part of his abilities. In the King of Queens, Arthur does that Seinfeld yelling stuff, to great legnths and does it well lie he did before. But there is this whole other side of Arthur compared to the Seinfeld character that really amazed me and drew me in as I was first watching the show. By just doing the loud and funny, yelling stuff every once in a while, you get to see how hilarious he is when he is just being calmly weird and on the edge of insane at times. His perspective on life and views about himself and others, and his crazy schemes just never stop making me laugh. I will miss the show very much, and I hope that both james and stiller do tv work again so I can see them on a regular basis either together or by themselves.

I watch the reruns everyday at 6 and 6:30. I watch the new episodes everyday monday night. I absolutely love that show. I am going to miss it. I will be buying that dvd. Congrats and goodluck to everyone on the cast and crew.

Doug and Carrie are more like a real couple than most couples! They bicker, they get aggravated, they’re REAL. But then loving and forgiving. Like being with friends each week. We’ll really miss it alot.

The KOQ is by far the best sitcom since Seinfeld and we will greatly miss new episodes on television. It’s a good thing that we have Dvds and re-runs to give us our King of Queens fix, and I hope they do a great job giving it a proper send-off.

I absolutly love the king of queens. i was just watching it last night, which is why i could`nt go to sleep.But to see the series come closer to the end makes me highly upset, like when the series of charmed finally ended. Anyway my favorite character is carrie, though i like doug for his comedy and his child like tactics to some situations i think that carrie is my favorite character because she does`nt take anything from anybody and shes bossy and mean and I like that about her.

This show is such an ingrained part of me and my husband’s daily life. There is not a day goes by where we don’t make a reference of either a, “Oh my God…you’re just like Carrie!”, to a “Everything is all about food, you’re such a Doug!” We just love the show! You couldn’t have gotten a better cast together! We have enjoyed sitcoms throughout our many years…but this one by far is our very, very favorite.
Thanks for the ride.